Living On Common Ground
Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario? Every environment? Your church, your school, your work, your friends. Left, right. Conservative, liberal. Religious, secular. From parenting styles to school choice, denominational choice to governing preference, it seems you're always being asked to take a side.
This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.
Living On Common Ground
Bridging Divides Without Losing Yourself
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Feeling cornered by purity tests and tribal litmus checks? We’ve been there. As a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be close friends, we trade quick outrage for slow curiosity and ask a tougher question: are we building bridges or policing borders? From social media habits to Stoic clarity, we unpack how certainty hardens into fundamentalism and how to interrupt that slide before it fractures our families, feeds, and neighborhoods.
We start with small, practical habits that shift conversations: a simple list of guardrails to use before posting online. Is this building understanding or reinforcing contempt? Would I say it to someone’s face because it’s right, not just brave? Am I treating people as complex or as caricatures? What emotion am I trying to spark—compassion or outrage—and what do I really hope to gain? These prompts turn performative signaling into meaningful dialogue and help detox your timeline without losing your voice.
Zooming out, we explore the radical flank effect, pluralistic ignorance, and the way groups punish 90 percent agreement as betrayal. Then we reach back to the early environmental movement as a blueprint for coalition: hunters, scientists, clergy, executives, hippies, and suburban parents stood shoulder to shoulder because polluted rivers didn’t ask for party IDs. Cooperation came before coherence, and progress followed. That big-tent energy can return if we stop treating neighbors as proxies for distant enemies and start rewarding nuance over noise.
Along the way, we share personal confessions about the dopamine loops of snark and the pride of being the “different one,” then offer practical ways to replace those hits with longer-lasting wins: clearer thinking, repaired ties, and a wider common ground. If you’re ready to trade certainty for curiosity and contempt for understanding, you’ll leave with language, tools, and hope for the next hard conversation.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves a good debate done well, and leave a review telling us which guardrail you’ll try this week.
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https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com
Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular. It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground. Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:But we're friends now.
SPEAKER_04:A mom is known as a mom because they are living in a dog. Man, so well, we want a few games. Man, that ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp. Cool. But then we're right back here, and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.
SPEAKER_02:So the bus class just like logistically. Yeah, it was um it well, not just logistically, technically. It helped me um learn how to use a lot of the equipment that we've been using. And I will say that I've gone back and I've listened to old episodes compared to the Hey, by the way, uh 25 episodes now with but with Buzzsproute.
SPEAKER_01:I know I got an email saying congratulations on 25 episodes of Living on Common Ground. I was like, We've had way more than that.
SPEAKER_02:We have had, but in that since we changed our host.
SPEAKER_01:And uh we're way cooler than that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I also was told years, man. Two years. Two years of this, and you're still wanting to visit with me. I keep waiting for you to get tired of my this is some like this is often the highlight of my week.
SPEAKER_01:That's very so that's very that's very odd.
SPEAKER_02:Why?
SPEAKER_01:I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, so but yeah, real quick about Buzz Sprout. So it's been 25 episodes that we've had with them, and um I don't mean it's odd because I don't like it.
SPEAKER_01:I like it too. I meant to tell you.
SPEAKER_02:No, what I took it as is it was odd that anybody would want to spend that much time with you. But I mean, yeah. You haven't gotten tired of my ass. I gotta be fine. I gotta be honest. That's how I feel. Like, I know myself well enough to know like he's just being nice.
SPEAKER_01:At some at some point, you're gonna get tired of this.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think so. Oh like what I like is like when you said this, I didn't I'm what I pictured was you going like like this. Like you're gonna get you're gonna get tired of this and pointing it yourself. Not that not that the that's how I feel. No, it's great. Um uh so just real quick, Buzz Sprout. We got there because I took that online class and I learned so much about how to record. And so then I went back and I listened to other episodes that we've done over the uh last couple years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I gotta be honest with you, um, anybody that continued to listen through some of that, thank you. Because the quality was really bad. But now I've become a quality snob. And so like I'll listen to another podcast, and I'm like, no, they they they really need to do better.
SPEAKER_01:Um so anyway, uh forget though, do you ever um uh feel like it's kind of sometimes it's kind of nice when the quality's bad. Like it's not not me feel better about myself. No, I don't mean like distractingly, does it feel more like authentic? That's what I mean. Like where sometimes it's like, oh, this is like real. Like it's not produced.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um but usually that's dumb. Like people people want to feel like people want the the edges.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh so I was I was trying to watch some videos today on YouTube um talking about the the topics that I shared with you um before we started recording. Yeah. The uh um radical flank and um or uh flank policing. Flank policing. Yeah, it's flank policing. It depends on depends on where you um where you're reading it. I think the technical term is radical flank effect. But I've also come across like flank policing. Um, but but if you were talking to like You know how I feel about terms.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you we love them. Um we don't need any more terms.
SPEAKER_02:I think that we I think that the more uh we can come up with terms, the better we are. So the yeah, but if you're talking to like a political um science guy or or woman, uh person, then um it's called the radical flank effect. I think that the common like term might just be flank policing. That one, and then I also was looking up pluralistic ignorance, but I was trying to all that to say. So I'm I'm I'm looking at videos and I'm getting a little upset because it sounds like they're recording um in a cave.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know Krista's happy about the um the quality upgrade. She really happy about the last uh what five minutes of us just uh doing shop talk. Okay. She loves it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, some people care. At least I know two people that care. They just hope both happen to be in the room right now. That's right. All right. So you uh you mentioned, okay, a couple things. So uh we're getting we're getting close to the end of the year. We've got um we've got this week's episode, which is the uh December 11th, and then we have next week, and then on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we'll actually be dropping an episode. Um and on Christmas Day, it's gonna, we're gonna do a little different thing where um I'm gonna be telling the Christmas story based on uh a retelling of the Christmas story with my theological understanding. Sounds good as of right now. Sounds awesome. Yeah, so it should be, it should be, it should be great. And then um I don't think we've exactly determined what we're gonna do on for the New Year's Eve, New Year's Day episode. It could be simply let's look at how uh disconnected Jeff is from the rest of the world. We're just old. That's all that is. Is that what it is? Yeah, you're actually a happy birthday. You are now officially, again, 10 years younger than me. So when you say we are just old, you're just being kind.
SPEAKER_01:Well, when you gave me that list of the things that um that you didn't that I don't know have any idea what they were talking about, I knew like four of them, four out of ten or something like that. Yeah, and I feel like that's because I'm just 10 years behind you, so my kids are 10 years or just like five years behind you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Madison now gets called Unk. It's good. Yeah, but the club's mad. She's 21 and she her language is not evolving as quickly as her brother's. Good. That's the better way to be. She still uses terms, and her brother, my son, is uh he just well, he says things and I have no idea what he's saying. Oh I can't, I can't. Yeah. So all right. But you you mentioned um the posts that I've been doing. I'm trying to start a I'm starting to I'm trying to start a social media revolution, and so far uh it's not taking off. But well, but I will say I have seen glimpses of hope. So is there any particular one that you want to uh you want to call me out on and tell me why I was wrong?
SPEAKER_01:No. But I like this one, um, this this latest one where you're asking about or you're you're you're giving questions that you ask yourself if you're making a post.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:If you're post if you're posting something now, is this if you're commenting also on other people? You know, or do you comment very much?
SPEAKER_02:I if I do if I do comment, um, I try to do the same, I try to stick with the same quest like those same questions that I'm asking myself. Yeah. So yeah, so if you haven't seen it, uh first of all, I would encourage you, Jeffrey Strezzoff is my, do you call it a handle? I don't know. I don't know. If you've if you search for me on social media, it's Jeffrey Strezzoff. But uh most of what I've been trying to do right now is on Facebook. I'm still trying to learn how to use TikTok. And Elena has told me that my videos look like they're being shot by a middle-aged man. And I was like, well, um because they are, you know? Um, so she she's offered to try to help me. But here's the questions that that you're referencing. So I wrote, this was last night while I was writing. Um, and and just I guess for full transparency, I'm writing them in a in another manuscript I'm working on. And like I told you before we started recording, as I wrote them, I thought, boy, Jeff, these are brilliant. You should share this.
SPEAKER_01:So you fit right in on social media. Yeah. Um I have a brilliant thought. People must hear it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Um, I'm trying to become more confident because as an introvert, I I will often eat my own thoughts.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I will say, like, it's that's better, I think, than um, than how I approach social media, which is why I continue to delete social media, the you know, Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and threads and all of them, and then re-download them again like a coke fiend. Um because I don't I don't do a whole lot of posting. Like I don't do a whole lot of like I'm going to make a post, I'm going to post something, and then people can comment on it. Um every once in a while, but most of the time I don't. Most of the time what I'm doing is going in um as anonymously as possible and being really biting. Like really biding.
SPEAKER_02:So that question that you had. Yeah, so let's go through the questions and see how well you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So I wrote, I'm working on a project and I came up with a list of questions to ask myself before I post something on social media. I wanted to share the questions with you. So the first question, is this building understanding or reinforcing contempt? Second question, am I trying to help people understand something or am I signaling to my tribe that I'm one of the good ones? The next is a two-part question. Would I say this to the person's face? And and and I wanted to make sure that I clarified, not would I have the courage? That's not the question. The question is would I think it was the right thing to do? Um the next question, am I treating people as complex humans or as representatives of enemy tribes? Next. When I share content about quote, them, am I acknowledging their humanity or reducing them to a caricature? Next? What emotion am I trying to evoke? Understanding, compassion, or outrage, contempt, fear? What and then the last question is, what will I get out of posting this? Information sharing? Dopamine hit? Tribal approval? The pleasure of being right? So um, you know, I've only been back on social media after like a few year hiatus for when did I come back on? Like in September, October?
SPEAKER_01:That sounds right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So let's just let's just uh go with on the long side and say two months. And um and I've noticed that people that I really think a lot of, um, you know, I I uh Name names. No just kidding. Yeah, right. But people that I I think a lot of and that um that I think that I have a lot in common with. Uh I don't think that they realize what they're actually doing with their posts. And and they'll s they'll post things or they'll or they'll repost things. And it's not just information that they're sharing, it it it is an attack against people who don't think or believe or behave like they do. And sometimes it's hidden as um as humor. Sure. But often it's it's just unnecessary. Sure. So I I mean I I firmly believe that people should have their opinions and they should ha be safe to share their opinions about things. Um, but I see that I see that space shrinking.
SPEAKER_01:I don't really know what that means by safe to share their opinions, though.
SPEAKER_02:Really? Or are you just being uh argumentative?
SPEAKER_01:No, I mean like when it comes to like social media, like Oh. What do you mean like be safe to share their opinions?
SPEAKER_02:Well, on social media I think we feel too safe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right? But what I'm saying is I should be able to You want to allow people to share their opinion. Without okay. Stoicism. Can I go there? Sure. Okay. I don't remember. I think it was Epictetus, but it could be before him. Um talks about this idea that we make observ we like we can make observations. Right. So, like for example, let's say the example is that you and I vote voted for a different um candidate in the last presidential election. That's probably true. Right? Mm-hmm. Okay. That's the fact. Right. That's the statement. But what happens is we take it one step further and we start to then make uh moral judgments based on that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That are not substantiated.
SPEAKER_01:Because that fact is meaningless without the interpretation of it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And so, but then what we do is we say, well, then, um, well, Lucas, because he voted differently than me, either is uninformed or an idiot.
SPEAKER_03:Or a person.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe he's maybe he's amoral, right? Or immoral. Um, maybe he's evil. Right. And and and then it becomes not maybe. It it gets to the point where then, well, then Lucas is evil and he wants to see the destruction of democracy in the world.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And those interpretations, those are the only things that matter to us. Because it because if you and I used a different brands of toothpaste, that would be the same level of fact as we pressed a button for a different candidate.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's the same level of fact, except that with the different brands of toothpaste, although you could conceivably start to pull interpretations from it, sure. Probably we can understand, we can we can feel you don't care as much about fresh breath as I do. Right. Or something, right? Or, you know, um in scare quotes news um organizations have been doing this for the last like 10 years or so, where um your uh commercial decisions, like your toothpaste, has some sort of indication of um where you are on the like the alt-right pipe pipeline or the manosphere or the um Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Let me give it here's an example. Someone drives a Subaru.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we all know. Immediately.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, we know everything about them.
SPEAKER_01:Everything, right? Yeah, I know what their dog looks like, and I know they like to hike, and I know we all know that they're probably a lesbian. Come on, we all know. Right? Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um okay, let's try another one. How about someone drives a Toyota Tacoma?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we know quite a bit. Probably they're um uh I must go ahead. Uh they're probably trying to overthrow some country in the Middle East. That's number one. I don't know why. Why is it always Toyota Tacoma's in those videos?
SPEAKER_02:Is that what that like it's not the tundra though, and I'd like to point that out because the tundra people and the Tacoma people are different.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. What is it but that Toyota Tacoma is like a smaller version, right?
SPEAKER_02:It's a smaller version.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like you wanted a pickup, but you didn't get the big one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you're probably a little more sporty, right? Like you you do dirt bikes if you drive a Tacoma.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Tundra people, uh, you know, Tundra people are like we want to kind of look like farmers, but we live in a suburb.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because you got Toyota, you didn't go forward, you didn't go or dodge, you didn't go dodge, right?
SPEAKER_02:No, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So anyway, so yeah, all that Prius. If you drive a Prius, we know a ton about you, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, absolutely. You know what's funny? Tree hugger. Here's a funny, here's a fun one. Uh-huh. Uh if you uh if you drive a um a Tesla. So if you drove a Tesla five years ago, it meant a thing. Maybe, but I mean like you people would make interpretations and then it flips in people's minds, right?
SPEAKER_02:Well, one of our friends who drives a Tesla, uh, he was telling me that his son told him, Oh, we're rich. He's like, Why would you say that?
SPEAKER_01:Because we drive a Tesla.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So immediately, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Because that is something that I always um I always associated as well. Back in when when we were living in California, we had um people who drive, you know, do drop off in their Tesla, and I would think like, oh yeah, they're doing pretty well.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well, and and if you want to, and if you're driving around in a cyber truck, yeah, I got all kinds of opinions about you. Right.
SPEAKER_01:But my point, my point wasn't actually that like we do draw these interpretations. My point is like, if you can find my point was to agree with your stoic point. Yeah. If you can find some decision you made that is completely seems completely meaningless, then you can tell, like kind of in your gut when you think about it, you can tell that, well, voting for a particular candidate, that particular fact pulled out of any kind of context is also just a fact and has nothing associated with it except to the interpretation that then we in place that then we place upon it. Yeah. Um yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02:And so um what I'm so all the way back to what do I mean when I say safe? What I mean is that you you have I think that everyone has a right to have their opinion. Right. And I and I think that everyone should have convictions. By safe, I mean you're not gonna be persecuted because of that, right? Um so and that's where I brought up the stoicism stuff. So like you have the right to have opinions about who should who should have been elected, or um, you know, uh what we should be doing with the border, or how we should be um handling policing in the cities, or like all of that. And that doesn't then mean that we need to automatically label you as evil. But we do it. Sure. Right. Immediately. Immediately. But here's the thing that I'm thinking about, and this is where I this is why I was looking at this uh pluralistic ignorance, as I I don't think that we I think individually we're less likely to do it.
SPEAKER_01:Individually we're less likely to do what?
SPEAKER_02:To to make that leap to evil. Oh I think that I think the reason we do it has to do with uh has to do with the herd.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the group that we're trying to align with. Right. So what we do is consciously, of course.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So we keep quiet, right? And when it happened, and then and then we begin to see uh that the group does this, and so we quietly just allow it to happen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I've I have thought about this a lot, and to to be honest with myself, um, about how I do think that we when we're thinking of the world and topics and how we feel about the topics, I do think that if you could get all the way down underneath everything, um that we have our our assumptions about these topics or our um you know, what seems right to us about any topic that has more to do with um how we feel about somebody who would, who in our mind would think that thing about it, right? Like, like we just kind of don't will, we just kind of don't like it. Okay, so um uh I was uh Chris and I talked about how like it seems like we're always it seems like a lot of people are really when they're arguing against a topic, what they're doing is they're saying, I'm mad at my dad or I'm mad at my mom.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you've said that to me before. Like I've said something you said, what I hear you saying is my mom, da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and I have I so and I don't get highly offended. Good. And in my mind, I make a moral judgment about you. Good. You should. Um and and I don't mean that like other people do that and I don't, or we or we have to try to get away from I think that's an inevitable thing. I think that when I'm saying things like I don't know, like um get married young and have a bunch of kids. Like have a normal life. Don't try to follow your dreams or whatever. You know what I mean? Like tongue in cheek, but you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02:That actually sounds pretty close to what I've heard you say before.
SPEAKER_01:Um uh it's it's partly because like I am, I'm kind of associating myself with um, or I'm I'm I'm mad at my mom. Like the little kid inside me is mad at my mom and wants you to know that I'm not like her. Right. I'm not saying that she is I'm saying like it's the it's the caricature right of the chaotic of whatever that I have of my mom. And she gets a lot of the brunt. My dad just left. So she gets she gets a lot of the brunt of my talking because she was around. Right. So that's probably unfair. But my point being that like when I say stuff like that and I have these kind of like positions, I can frame them. I frame them in a lot of um, a lot of grounded kind of logical argument. But I think it's more like I just kind of like those people that I want to associate with those people that remind me more of my grandparents' people. You know what I mean? Like, so that's probably what why it kind of seems right to me. You know, it's not really like an argument. Anyway.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, we find so again, I've been doing a lot of research on group mentality, how you know, the impact of evolution like evolution has had on this and all that kind of stuff. Here's here's where I'm struggling a bit is because you're adding another layer to me to thinking about all of this. And um, and I I was telling Denise the other day that I'm a promiscuous synthesizer. You and your terms. What does this mean?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I get it. Figure it out. I get it. Yeah, I got that. Okay. All right, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Then tell me what do I mean, and I'll tell you if you're right.
SPEAKER_01:You're constantly trying to um uh blend uh everyone's kind of ideology thought processes into a new one. Yeah. You're synthesizing everyone.
SPEAKER_02:I'm taking from everything that it I see as related, yeah. You won't think synthesize it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I'm a promiscuous synthesizer. Yeah, and Denise is like, could you come up with a better word? And I was like, no, I intentionally chose that one. I like it. I like the promiscuous is a fun word to say though, too. Isn't it? It's a cool one. And it brings up all kinds of images.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like it. Now I like it. Denise is wrong. Denise, you're wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Um so yeah. Um, where was I going with this? Oh, so um so yeah, that it has to do with like tribalism and and and finding comfort and safety in your community. And we will actually give up our own moral um we will we will betray our own morality in order to remain connected to the community.
SPEAKER_01:Because I would say, I would add to that and say morality really is the codification of the things that allow you to remain within the community. That's what I really think morality is.
SPEAKER_02:So it becomes a shape based on it's shaped by your community.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it and it's right, it it's constantly being reshaped. Yeah. To your point, here's a here's a great kind of example of like how you'll give up maybe something that's better or will work for the sake of being in the tribe. Um, this is one of my favorite examples because I think that it's it's a favorite example to show this uh mentality, but also I think if you can keep it in your mind and maybe push against this a little bit, it can be kind of a superpower for you if you want to be find success in some field. And that is, and I I'm gonna butcher this, but there's a um, there's a basketball player that um uh I think it was in the 70s. Um, my my grandfather used to always tell me, my grandpa used to always tell me that um there's no reason to miss a free throw in in basketball. The only reason you miss a free throw is because you haven't practiced enough. Because there's nobody blocking you, there's nobody defending. So you should never miss a free throw. But, and I'm gonna get these numbers wrong, but the principle is the same. A really good free throw percentage is something like call it 75%, something like that. Okay. Uh if you're really at the top of your game. Well, there's this guy, there was this guy in the 70s who would do who would um do his free throws underhanded. And his percentage was something like 92% or something like that. It was way above the top. But nobody started doing free throws underhanded.
SPEAKER_02:No, because you look ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01:Because you look ridiculous. And we would far rather look normal to our group than do the thing that we ostensibly say we want to succeed at. And I think the same thing is what I think that's relatable to what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's a great example. Yeah. So I was just looking something up real quick because I mentioned that I am trying uh trying to create a uh social media revolution.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So um I uh I've been posting since it looks like it's the end of October. I just scrolled all the way back. Okay. All right. So on an uh a very active post for me has about 21 likes.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:That's it. Right? Um, and the most I ever got was 32 comments.
SPEAKER_01:Quite a bit of comments.
SPEAKER_02:On one, okay. So now an another person that I know, I'm not gonna read their post, but um it he uh again I'm saying everyone start looking. I um I uh I agree with his like I just think he and I have a lot more in common than we do not in common. And I think that his intentions are um I I believe that his intentions are good. His most recent post, in my opinion, is more uh divisive and is just kind of like a hey, look at me tribe, I'm a part of you. Right. Um and it was posted four hours ago one point three thousand likes, thirty-five comments, five hundred and sixty-four shares. I think that's telling that we would much rather we the dopamine hit is more important to us than than staying than doing the hard work of of trying to um well I have create trying to create common ground, Lucas, is a pain in the ass.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, I I mean I have no place to throw stones because But you're on a podcast called Living on Common Ground. Yeah, but all I do on this is what I'm saying. I'm like a Coke addict. I have to keep uh deleting the apps off my phone because I don't I don't even post. What I do is go in and scroll and go, oh come on. Ugh, come on. And then when I do make comments, they're all biting, biting comments. Um, and it's just it's not it's not good. And um, so then I delete it, and then I get bored and I look for other things to um to do the same thing with. Um, but it's but it's better. It's it's I think it's always it's always better to try to do a thing. Even if you do it poorly, than to not try.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That's always better. Well, that's the thing too. All of this about the um, again, the reason uncertainty is so important to me is because I believe that uncertainty is what or I believe that certainty is what leads to fundamentalism, fundamentalism is what leads to division and ends up um creating hate and war and all that kind of stuff. And I'm and I'm not even talking about like shooting at each other, I'm just talking about verbal, verbal volleys that we see, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the the the emotional wars that happen within families.
SPEAKER_02:All the time. And and to me, so if I could I'm just trying to put a crack in certainty. That being said, I have to work at it myself. Even though I'm preaching on this, and I mean not like preaching on Sunday mornings. Well, I do on Sunday mornings too, but but like this has like become my my my stump, right? Yeah. Um and I don't see that changing in a long time because I think it's so important. Um but I can very easily draw drop right into uh getting that I'm gonna say dopamine again, because I think it's the same thing that happens when you're in a room with people and they all agree with you. I can easily fall into that. I can be in a room and all of a sudden they start taking shots at um maybe a political figure. And I can fall right into it again. Um and I know that the moment the times that I've tried to call us out on it, uh, it's really uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01:Um So here's here's here's a fun little aspect. Because I you're absolutely I think you're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_02:And um But I but I just say that because you said you have to work like you're better to work at it than to not. Yeah. Like however you said that. Yeah. That's what made me think of that. It is better. It is better to do it, even if even if it's done poorly, it's especially if it's an attempt to try to make yourself a better person.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Anytime.
SPEAKER_02:Anytime you're trying to John Wesley used to say, um, I like what I'm doing a lot more than what you're not. I like what I'm doing a lot more than what you're not.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So like whenever somebody would come up and tell him what he should be doing, he would always say, Well, I I like I like what I'm doing a lot more than what you're not. Because a lot of times people tell you what they should, you what you should be doing, they're not doing it themselves. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Anyway, sorry, go on.
SPEAKER_01:I was just gonna say that I have a um another kind of boomerang thing that happens for me where I get a self-satisfied kind of elitist. Um, I don't know if it's dopamine or not, but whatever. In my psyche, it makes me feel pride to think of myself always as the one who's different from the rest. I'm not like the other girls, right? I uh uh I'll I'm in a group like that and I'm like making a comment different. You know what I mean? Like that, and it's a it's it's not the same, but it's a similar thing where I am falling into in that respect, I'm falling into um you know, a self-serving image that I'm trying to create for myself, you know. Which isn't good either.
SPEAKER_02:So by the way, just real quick, uh next time you delete all of your social media accounts and you're looking for something else to do to waste your time, yeah. Uh you can go to my Substack. Okay. Yeah. And leave comments.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So I'll do that.
SPEAKER_02:All right, I appreciate it. I subscribe. Yeah, you do. Um, but I can look at uh yeah, I know you're not a creator on Substack, but you you are on Substack. Definitely not a creator. Um did you know and I'm sorry I I'm digressing here, but did you know that I can look to see who is the most um engaging with my stuff? Oh really? Uh-huh. So let's see. I'm gonna look up Lucas real quick.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no.
SPEAKER_03:Let's see. I am not engaged at all. I don't even see you. Gosh Almighty.
SPEAKER_02:I'm making moral judgments about you right now. You should. I don't even see you on here. But I know that you're hold on, load more. There we go. I just didn't realize it didn't show everybody. No, hey, you're not too bad. At least uh at least you must open the email and then delete them. I don't delete them, I just open it. I I open it. Okay, good. Yeah, because you got four out of five stars. All right. So let me let me switch for a second. I got a question for you. Yeah. All right. Talking about this idea of policing borders.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Um, so a couple things. And I think this might be a post that I'm gonna make on social media today. So I wrote this down. Think about the last time someone in your group was cast out.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Not because they joined the other side, but because they questioned one belief, asked maybe one uncomfortable question, showed 90% agreement instead of 100%. Right. Now, my thing is that's not community building, that's purity testing. And it always turns inward before it turns outward. And then the question is, are you building bridges or policing borders?
SPEAKER_01:Well, we talked about this last week off the air, also, um, which is that um i the the whole uh turning inwards before it turns outwards, uh in in my experience and my study, um this might not always be the case, but it seems like it almost always only turns inward, that it continues to eat itself, that kind of thing, the um the struggle sessions, the purity tests, that kind of thing. Because what we were talking about last week, which is that we create you have your group and then you create your your enemy, you know who your enemy is that's outside of the group, except you never actually interact with that person. What you do is you interact with the people inside the group and they serve as proxies for that enemy that's outside of the group. And so when you're talking about that, like where somebody comes up, you're having this conversation and somebody says something that maybe feels like it's like 3% off of what they should be saying, at least in your mind at that point, then you can treat that person who you have access to as the enemy. You can get the cathartic release of what you wanted to say to the enemy, but you never actually talk to the enemy. You never actually go and speak to that person. You maybe never see that person.
SPEAKER_02:Blast at him on social media now.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe you blast at him in social media. Maybe you maybe you just you just think you know who that person is out there, but you have in your mind, like, like you can think about this. Like, you might be a group of people who know, I'm just gonna this, this will be an easy one, who know that racism is wrong and that you all are not racists. Sure. Okay, but you know who the racists are, right? The racists are whoever, like you're whatever. Well, when you're talking inside that group, I've seen this over and over again. You're not, you don't very rarely do you actually talk to a person who is on the outside, who's the racist, and they say the racist thing, and you go, You shouldn't say that racist thing. What happens is you're talking to your in-group, and somebody says something that is like kind of, it's not even off-color. It's just you worded it in a way that seems um, what's the word that we use? Problematic. Right. And so then now you can jump on that person as the proxy for the racist, right? And the same thing happens. I mean, I used that one because that's easy, but the same thing happens in like right-wing um groups as well, right? Um, where like you might know that I don't know, like the um it might be a socialist um thing or or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_02:And so somebody says something that's just a little bit off of I've got a real life example because I've been researching. Yeah, right. So um I looked up the environmental movement. Uh-huh. I think this is a great example of what we're talking about. It says uh um, so in the late 1960s, something remarkable happened in America. People started noticing that rivers were catching fire. That was Cuyahoga River, by the way. Um, my hometown. That smog was so thick in some cities you couldn't see across the street, that birds were dying and no one seemed to know why. And then Rachel Carson published Silent Spring. What happened next wasn't a political movement in the way we understand that term today. It was more like a collective awakening. Suddenly, people from radically different worlds found themselves aligned around a simple shared concern. The planet was in trouble. Scientists stood beside uh birdwatchers. College students organized teach-ins with suburban parents, hunters and fishers, uh, people who spent their time, uh their lives in wild places, found themselves working alongside urban activists who'd never held a fishing rod. Republican lawmakers sponsored environmental legislation alongside Democrats, corporate executives who supported regulation, uh who supported regulatory reform attended the same rallies as union members and countercultural activists. No one was checking anyone's credentials, no one was demanding ideological purity tests. There was no litmus tests about whether you were, quote, really committed to the cause. What held this improbable coalition together wasn't agreement about tactics or philosophy. It was a visceral recognition that the environment mattered to everyone, that polluted water didn't care about your political affiliation, that smog didn't ask whether you were progressive or conservative before filling your lungs. Earth Day 1970 became the largest civic event in American history at that point. Twenty million Americans, roughly 10% of the entire U.S. population, participated. School children wrote letters to Congress alongside Nobel Prize winning scientists. Clergy spoke at rallies with atheist activists. People who disagreed profoundly about Vietnam civil rights and economic policy found themselves shoulder to shoulder picking up trash along highways. The movement's cohesion flowed from shared curiosity and concern rather than doctrinal clarity. People felt free to experiment, to discuss, to disagree without assuming the worst of one another. They were connected by relational and practical commitments rather than rigid ideological lines. This was a community before division, before certainty, before the fracturing that would come later, because of course it didn't last. Questions of strategy hardened into competing camps. Policy-focused organizations dismissed direct action activists as extreme. The label environmentalist itself became contested territory. Who got to claim it, what it meant, what you had to believe to wear it. The movement that had once welcomed corporate executives and anarchists to the same teach-ins split into factions that sometimes viewed one another as rivals rather than allies. The issues didn't disappear. They actually got worse. But now you couldn't talk about them without first declaring what kind of environmentalists you were. But for a brief shining moment, there was just a community of humans who cared about rivers and birds and breathable air, who brought their different perspectives, farmers and scientists, business people and hippies, conservatives and radicals, and worked together because the problem was bigger than any single viewpoint could solve. The early environmental coalition reminds us of something crucial. Communities often flourish most when curiosity is valued over certainty and when cooperation is allowed to precede coherence. We don't need to agree on everything to work together. We just need to see each other as humans rather than avatars of positions we oppose.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I wrote. That's what you wrote? Mm-hmm. Oh, what's that in?
SPEAKER_02:It's in um the project I'm working on right now. Oh, that's good. Thanks. Yeah, it's called I've got an outline. I'd be more than happy to show you my outline. But um again, I'm working on writing because I have now have time to be creative and write. So I'm calling it the certainty trap. And then the subtitle is How Letting Go of Being Right Can Save Our Communities.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the that that whole like um having to declare yourself a particular type of environmentalist. Yeah. Um, I mean, that happens in a lot of positions. I I it keeps getting worse. It Yeah, and I I do think I think of it kind of as like a um almost like a elemental principle that these things kind of like they they grow and smash into other ones and then they separate out and then they then they become something else. And then, you know. I mean, the I feel like the um the term feminism has had the same a very similar thing. Whereas today, you really have to, I feel the need to be like, but not that kind. Yeah. Like I when I was in college, I was very clear, like, yes, obviously I'm a feminist because I want everyone to be treated equally. Now I'm like, but not that kind. Do you know what I mean? Like I I have this feeling of like, I don't, I don't want there are a lot of things that have now been attached to that term that I don't want you thinking of me when when I say that. Like you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And um I feel like uh it's it's similar with all of these isms. So here's the here's my yes.
SPEAKER_02:Here's my um environmentalists. My last thought.
SPEAKER_01:Because I like to think of myself as an environmentalist that I care about the environment, but I certainly am not a whole bunch of things that get added on to it. Right. You know what I mean? And so like that's I care about the health.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, obviously I care about the environment.
SPEAKER_03:Um I think we all should. Okay. So um shoot. I like that.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a that's an interesting It's an interesting picture that you paint.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm I'm trying. Um all right. So I had one last thought and it's gone, so I won't have any more thoughts for the day.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we'll have it next week.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um what was my thought? Shoot. Anyway, uh did we did we have I think the whole is was the whole thing common ground?
SPEAKER_01:I think we our common ground is we're very impressed with ourselves that we've been doing this for two years and we're still improving.
SPEAKER_02:That was not my takeaway, but I now that you mention it, um, I am very impressed by your willingness to continue to sit and talk with me. Um so well, you know, I don't know um if I'll ever credit either you or Krista or Caroline or Bucky or uh so many of you in any of my uh writings that I'm doing right now. But you do know that um if it wasn't for all of you, none of this writing would be getting done. Because you all force me to continue to think. I mean, I've I continue to think anyway. In fact, um I will share this one last thing just because it made me smile today. Um talking about being a promiscuous synthesizer. So a friend of mine who I haven't um haven't seen in in probably 11 years, she commented on one of my posts.
SPEAKER_01:Um I bet I know which comment it is.
SPEAKER_02:Which one do you think it is?
SPEAKER_01:The one talking about the aha moment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That was nice. Wasn't that nice? Um so I've been I've been this person for a long time. But I appreciate all of you who continue to push me to to um to continue to think and continue to give me different perspectives on stuff. Um yeah, so just because I am self-serving, I want to read it. You, my friend, are a complex man of God with many complex thoughts, always in search of answers. Oftentimes I would wonder where you were taking us in your sermons. Then at the close, there was always this aha moment that brought it all together. Your, I think she meant a gift from God. Have a great day, kind man. That last statement was the highest praise I think I can get.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a um kind man. I think that's a cool uh that was a cool comment, and I would agree. I think it's uh, you know, I think um you're always trying to search for the truth and search for for answers and be open.
SPEAKER_02:Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01:Very it's very important.
SPEAKER_02:I and that might be our common ground.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's our general common ground anyway. I think so.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Uh have a wonderful birthday.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thanks. Yeah, appreciate it. All right, talk to you later. See ya.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to Living on Common Ground. Please follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with your friends. You can also find a link to our social in the description. The more people we have living on common ground, the better the world will be.
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